National Weather Service
Professional Development Series
Professional Competency Unit

Fire Weather

PCU 3: Fire Weather Meteorology

Producer: Liz Page, OCWWS/COMET

Description of Job Duty Competency to be Achieved

Ability to assimilate and integrate available data and knowledge of fire weather concepts into the production of high-quality and timely fire weather products.

Description of Need

Meteorologists need to effectively communicate, in written, verbal and graqphical form, the
current and future conditions which impact the operations of the land management community. THis includes
provision of routine and non-scheduled fire weather products and services.

Specific Job Task Skills and Knowledge

1. Critical fire weather patterns, conditions and climatology, such as:

  • Fire Season(s).
  • Synoptic-scale patterns.
  • Meteorological and fuel-related factors (e.g., available fuels, strong wind, low atmospheric moisture, and instability).

    • 2. Complex terrain, diurnal and local effects, such as:

  • Thermally-driven winds.
  • Mechanically-driven winds.
  • Reverse wind profiles (i.e., low level jet).
  • Impact of terrain on meteorological Parameters:
  • Diurnal variations.
  • Aspect variations.
  • Vegetation variations.

    • 3. Analysis and integration of local data, such as:

  • Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS), including RAWS climatology.
  • Forest Technology System (FTS).
  • Local mesonets.
  • VAD wind and profiler data.
  • ADAS information from the University of Utah.
  • Other sources (e.g., SNOTEL, ACARS).

    • 4. Fire weather forecast parameters, such as:

  • Haines Index and/or Davis Stability Index.
  • Lightning Activity Level (LAL).
  • Dispersion indices (e.g., mixing height, transport winds,ventilation index).
  • Relative humidity.

    • 5. Integrate fire weather forecast techniques and tools, such as:

  • Local mesoscale models.
  • Forecast techniques (e.g., nomograms, decision trees).
  • Observed and model output soundings (e.g., AWIPS/BUFKIT/ANALYZE).

    • InstructionalComponents

    Instructional Component 3.1 Review the reference from the National Fire Weather Forecasters Course (S-591) entitled "Critical Fire Weather Patterns of the United States".

    Instructional Component 3.2 Complete the COMET Fire Weather CBL.

    Instructional Component 3.3 Read the following articles (no longer in print):

  • Publication by Schroeder entitled "Critical Fire Weather Patterns in the Conterminous United States".
  • Publication by Schroeder et. al. entitled "Synoptic Weather Types Associated with Critical Fire Weather".

    • Instructional Component 3.4 Read the following:

  • "Mountain Meteorology" by C. David Whiteman.
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture/Forest Service Handbook #360 entitled "Fire Weather" (NEFS #1174).
  • AMS publication entitled "Wind Over Complex Terrain".
  • Paper by Werth and Ochoa et al. in June 1993 Weather and Forecasting.
  • Paper by Donald Haines entitled "A Lower Atmosphere Severity Index For Wildland Fires" in NWA Digest, Volume 13, #2
  • WR Technical Attachment #97-17 by John and Paul Werth entitled "Haines Index Climatology for the Western United States.
  • U.S. Forest Service publication on LAL (per Dennis Gettman).

    • Instructional Component 3.5 Review the Program for CLimate, Ecosystem and Fire Appliations on the Desert Research Institute (DRI) web site

    Instructional Component 3.6 Review "Fire Weather" and other reference material that are available en masse on the S-591 reference CD-ROM.

    Implementation and Evaluation Tasks

    TBD

    Return to Fire Weather PDS page

    Last updated on 6/24/03